Information on working terriers, dogs, natural history, hunting, and the environment, with occasional political commentary as I see fit. This web log is associated with the Terrierman.com web site.

Friday, December 11, 2015

Kennel Club Dog Owners: "Just Following Orders"

Those who took college psychology classes might remember a study called the Milgram Experiment in which it was found that people would blindly follow orders from an authority figure when told to administer what they believed to be painful -- even lethal -- electric shocks to other humans. As Milgram himself wrote about his 1963 experiment:

Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not.

The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation

Now, more than 45 year later, the Milgram Experiment has been repeated again, with much the same results reports The San Jose Mercury News.

It turns out that people are so conditioned to follow authority (even when the authority is entirely contrived and asserted without documentation) that humans will routinely apply painful and potentially life-threatening jolts of electricity to people when told to.

Almost all people will apply 150-volt jolts to other humans (significantly more than household current), and about half will crank it up to more than 450 volts, even when the person they are shocking is no longer responding and may in fact be dead or passed out from the pain.

Why do I bring this up here?

Simple: think about dog breeds and breed standards.

People know that breeding very large dogs and very small dogs results in a very high, and very predictable, amount of painful canine pathology, ranging from cancer and bloat to syringomyelia.

People know that breeding achondroplastic and brachycephalic dogs results in a very high, and very predictable, amount of long-term breathing problems, joint problems, and heart disease.

In a world in which people will administer killing levels of electric shock to other people on voice command alone, it should come as no surprise to find many people are able to rationalize breeding dogs that will be in pain or discomfort for much of their lives.

After all, it's not like every dog in even a deeply troubled breed will have a painful defect. And if it happens, it can easily be fobbed off as a "bad break" . . . for the owner of the dog.

And yes, that is how we say, isn't it?

Oh your [cancer prone breed] is dying of cancer?I'm, so sorry for the terrible expense.

Your dachshund has to be put down with a spinal cord injury? I'm so sorry for your loss.

Are you getting another one? Oh good! It would be a shame if you let that one dog change your opinion of the breed!. . . .Related Links